This invention relates to non-caking fertilizers and explosives. It is known that granular, powdery or crystallized fertilizer compositions, particularly ammonium nitrate compositions, tend to cake while stored either in bulk or packages. Fertilizer compositions which cake are not amenable to usual bulk storing and handling techniques and after storage cannot be applied easily in the field with mechanical distribution devices.
U.K. Pat. No. 1,119,702, published July 10, 1968, discloses that the caking tendency of granular nitrate-containing fertilizers can be reduced by incorporating into the fertilizer a small amount of aluminum hydroxide or a basic aluminum salt. Non-caking, non-hygroscopic ammonium nitrate-containing finely-dispersed aluminum salts of higher fatty acids are disclosed in Czech. application No. 98,596, published November 23, 1959 [Chem. Abs., 56, 8296d (1962)]. U.K. Pat. No. 891,562, published March 14, 1962, and Belgian application No. 587,791, published August 18, 1960, disclose non-caking ammonium nitrate-containing aluminum sulfate.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,250, issued March 27, 1962 to W. Michelitsch, discloses the dusting of urea particles with a coating of basic aluminum sulfate to prevent agglomeration of the urea particles.